


Painting a Portrait of Peter Pettigrew

by Starrik



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Marauders, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 05:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8315035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrik/pseuds/Starrik
Summary: A long-abandoned Pensieve holds both secrets and pleas for a wary Harry Potter from a much hated man. How did the war look through a coward's eyes?





	1. Unpleasant Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> As should be obvious from the use of the Pensieve as a narrative device, this story will be told as a series of flashbacks from Peter Pettigrew's point of view, with Harry occasionally interjecting (usually in disgust, I would guess). If there's anything you'd like to see, or suggestions you have, feel free!

“Potter,” Susan Bones barked, making Harry jump a good sight higher than he’d expected to. When she’d turned into her legendary aunt, Harry didn’t know, but he’d as soon ask her to wear a tutu as presume to teach Bones anything these days. Trying to maintain some of the little dignity that he preserved on a regular basis, Harry looked up from the mess of paperwork on his desk at his colleague.

“What’s up, Susan?” he asked, trying for casual and managing most of it.

“There’s something we need you to see. Best not to talk about it here.”

That got Harry’s interest, there were few things that couldn’t be openly discussed in the Auror office. He ran through a couple of ludicrous ones, just to make sure that he was still sharp. Voldemort was still alive. Dumbledore was an Inferius and had taken to shambling after Hogwarts students. Voldemort’s time-travelling daughter from a dalliance with Bellatrix Lestrange had kidnapped his and Draco Malfoy’s sons to try and resurrect him, again.

Satisfied that he’d got the most ridiculous ones out of the way, Harry hurried out of his office after Susan, who’d left the moment his eyes glazed over a little. Not given to introspection, that one. Probably why she’d be leading the department despite Harry’s reputation as a bizarrely good Dark Wizard killer.

“Lips zipped until we leave the Atrium?” he asked, trying to double check. Pressing any Auror for information they were unwilling to give was always a bad idea, and for Susan twice over.

“Of course, but there’s really not much to say as such. More something that we need you to do.”

Well that clears it up, Harry thought, shooting Susan a glance that wondered if she was a Legilimens. Of the many skills he’d learnt since starting his training, Occulomency was still one of the things that gave him a lot of trouble. The few knots of people that the pair walked through en route to the lifts parted for them, leaving Harry and Susan both able to mentally prepare themselves for whatever lay ahead.

Even in the lift, the memos shifted to the outermost corners to keep room between them and the fierce magical practitioners who stood silent and contemplative in the centre. Harry wasn’t fond of the quiet and aggressive reputation of Aurors, but he had never mustered any reasonable doubts about the mental preparation routines.

The duo tore through the milling witches and wizards in the Atrium, and Bones took Harry’s arm the moment they were outside the limits of the Ministry’s anti-apparation charm.

Side-along apparation was standard procedure when something serious was happening, that way only those who had been taken to the location knew where something was happening. It kept the media away longer, at least, and functioned like a very weak Fidelius Charm. Harry had suggested it- they’d learnt a thing or two about keeping yourself secret while running from all of magical Britain. Hermione’s old charms were also standard around crime scenes now. She would be Minister soon enough, Harry was sure of it, especially with Ron spearheading her campaign. No one knew wizards like his best friend.

They appeared with a gut-wrenching jerk in an unassuming British village. Harry was pulled over the boundary line of a previously invisible house. His first reaction was that the place’s invisibility had probably been the best thing to happen to the neighbourhood in years- it was clearly abandoned many years back.  
“What-?” he started, but Susan just shook her head.

“This is the last known living quarters of Peter Pettigrew,” she said, well aware that Harry would understand its significance. “And it seems that he left some things to you.”  
“To me?” Harry exploded, almost turning red with the force of his emotions. “Wormtail betrayed my family and every one of his friends. He killed James and Lily Potter, framed Sirius Black and I’ll bet he wanted Lupin dead too. Why would he leave me anything?”

Susan patiently watched his fury with a long-suffering expression, and Harry realised that this was exactly why she’d refused to speak about the matter inside the Ministry.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, “bit of a sore spot.”

“For us all, Potter. Hence the discretion. The last thing the Ministry needs is you being associated with another Dark Wizard. The Prophet spits enough nonsense about your links to blood purists as it is. The fact remains that Pettigrew wanted you to have something. Or rather, we believe, he wanted you to see something.”

They walked inside the house, and Harry spotted immediately the evidence of dozens of magical traps that had been hastily disarmed. Other than that, the room seemed incredibly bare. Even before his death, it had been a long time since Peter Pettigrew had lived in this house. Harry looked at Susan, as if for an explanation. One of her aides obliged instead. The blonde, willowy man spoke quickly,

“This is the house that the Pettigrew family has occupied for the last four generations. They were the scraps of a few declining pureblood houses, all the pride that you see in the Blacks but none of the money or power.”

Susan seemed satisfied with the explanation, so Harry nodded his thanks to the man.

“And what makes you think that he wanted any of this for me?” Harry asked, himself thinking that it might be some cruel parody of Sirius’ last gesture to Harry in giving him Number 12, Grimmauld Place, now a museum and shrine to all those who lost their lives in both wars.

The response was merely to point over to one corner of the room, where there was a line scrawled across the wooden boards in blood, and written on the inside was,’“No other may pass here on pain of death, save Harry Potter alone.’

“Why do they all have to write in blood?” Harry asked, disgusted.

“Beats me,” Susan replied, “but we’ve checked the handiwork very thoroughly. It’s attuned to you by a rather disgusting clump of your hair, and the threat’s no lie. So the choice is yours. Leave now, and we’ll close this place off as another unexplained horror. Or take the risk, satisfy your curiosity, and step over the line. Oh, and try to disable the trap of course.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at Susan Bones, suddenly understand what her plan had been all along. Everyone knew how much trouble curiosity had got him into over the years, and now even his old partner was exploiting it to get him to do what she wanted. He really had to work on that one.

“Fine, fine. Let’s just get it over with then.”

He stepped over the line, ignoring the sudden intake of breath across the room, and tried to figure out what it was that Wormtail had hidden there for him. Carefully, Harry opened a cabinet that seemed to be in the middle of the blood-circle, and found a Pensieve. He sighed softly. It always seemed to be Pensieves with the morally grey old men that had meddled in his life. Without waiting for the warning called out, he plunged his head into the bowl, and the world started to swim around him.


	2. Train Travelling Troublemakers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry begins his dive into Wormtail's oldest memories, and our main cast meet for the first time.

Immediately, Harry could tell that whoever had used the Pensieve- Wormtail himself, probably- hadn’t been nearly as skilled with its use as he had the trap surrounding it. There was some kind of message that was playing before he could access any memories, but it was hazy and indistinct. Harry strained every sense that he had to try and focus on it better, when there was a dramatic shift in emotion, and everything became clear.

“If you’re hearing this, Harry,” Peter sniffed, “then despite everything I’ve done, the Dark Lord has fallen. Of course, I couldn’t be sure that he would win, so I’ve left you this. All my best memories, and some worse ones, right here in one place so you could know who I was. So someone would understand me. You didn’t want to let Remus or Sirius kill me, if anyone will understand me it’s you. Please watch them all. Please, Harry, I…” The voice faded away again. Harry really didn’t mind, Peter Pettigrew’s voice wasn’t something you wanted to listen to grovel at you for very long.

He felt a little cold at that, and the feeling doubled when the first scene came into focus around him. He was sitting on the Hogwarts Express, and he was more than a little relieved that he wouldn’t have to go through any memories of an even younger Peter Pettigrew.

 

Peter held a small mirror in his hand, turning over and over. A gift, from one of his uncles, to celebrate his first year of Hogwarts. Except that the thing was a very good example of why Peter didn’t like that uncle. Whenever you looked into it, it shouted things you weren’t at you.

“Perfect, pretty, prim, presentable Peter Pettigrew,” it cooed, and he stuffed it deep into his trunk.

He flopped down onto one of the seats in the empty cabin, and hoped that there would be other boys in his dormitory. They’d made him bunk alone eventually at his old boarding school, just because he was the smallest, weakest boy there. It had saved him a lot of beatings, but not helped his popularity any. Peter clenched his fists tight, and whispered to himself, “I will make friends. I will have friends. I will.”

Harry turned away, disgusted that he’d been watching for less than a minute and Wormtail had already managed to make him empathise. They were nothing alike, even if they had both hated their early school years. That meant nothing. As he turned, he saw something that cheered him up immensely. James, Sirius and Remus, already together, dragging their bags with them. Bizarrely though, Snape and Lily were with them too, and the five piled into Peter’s nearly empty cabin before they realised he was there.

“Oh,” exclaimed Lily, noticing him first. “Sorry, is this your cabin? Do you need us to leave?” she asked sweetly. Peter shook his head furiously, more than happy for the compartment to be filled with people his own age. There was a flurry of introductions, hands being shook over the top of each other until the centre of the compartment was a mess of arms and hands going in every direction.

Peter noticed the slight animosity between Snape and the two Pureblooded boys, but it was only the cool dislike of people who knew the other was an ideological rival. Neither Lily nor Remus seemed to notice anything unusual, Harry’s mother was too excited about being on the train to Hogwarts at last, and Remus was just as excited.

Unlike Peter, Harry knew that Lupin hadn’t thought he would ever be allowed to attend the school of his dreams, and that it was by Dumbledore’s kindness alone that he was on the train at all.

Quickly, the six bouncing first years settled into their seats; Lily, Snape and Peter on one side, the other three facing them. The chatter of new friends layered atop their nerves, but each hid it differently. James and Sirius faked bravado, each trying to one-up the other in displaying how unafraid they were. They’d already decided where they were going to be sorted-

“Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart,” James pronounced proudly, “my family are all Gryffindors.”

“Well my family are all Slytherins, but who’d want to go there?” asked Sirius disdainfully. Snape shuffled angrily in his seat at that, but Lily placed a placating hand on top of his, and he stopped immediately. “I think I’ll be a Gryffindor too. We’d make a good pair, James.”

“Oh, why don’t you two just kiss him already?” Lily asked, and the two deflated quickly, forcing Remus to sit between the two of them. He didn’t mind at all. Remus had already decided that he wanted to be wherever James and Sirius ended up, after a life of being ostracised for something that had been forced on him, he’d hardly push away two friends like those two. Peter clearly couldn’t agree more, and all the Gryffindor in the room seemed to be choking Severus.

Lily was having a great time, though, so he was forced to stay in their midst as she traded wits with James and Sirius, quickly proving that she had the sharpest tongue of the three. Both boys were a little baffled, and a little bit in love, as boys often do when you beat them at something they’re good at.

When the trolley lady arrived, the two wealthy sons of old families pooled their money and bought snacks for everyone there. Harry’s heart caught in his throat at seeing the very same scene between he and Ron play out twenty years earlier.

“Get a load of this, Evans,” James smirked, passing her a wrapped chocolate frog. She raised an eyebrow at him, and opened the end of the box as it was facing the smug boy. A small frog-shaped chocolate leapt from the box and onto James’ face, starting a scramble to catch it before it escaped.

“Come on, Potter, you think I’ve never seen a chocolate frog before?” she asked, biting the leg off of the frog and settling back into her seat comfortably. It wasn’t clear what she was enjoying more, the general shock of everyone but Snape, or the chocolate itself.

“But you’re a muggleborn!” Peter burst out, the first thing he’d said since they all learnt each others’ names.

“Yeah, but I’m not stupid,” she retorted. Snape sniggered, enjoying being part of an in-joke at everyone else’s expense. Before anyone could fire back, one of the prefects reached their compartment, and informed the six that they would be arriving soon, and that they needed to all change into their school robes. The unity of the group shattered, and soon their attention was all wound up in the anticipation of the beginning to come.


	3. Sorting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our little first years face the trial of the Sorting Hat, and as easily as that, friendships are made and broken.

Some things seemed like they would never change. Most of them were terrible, but Harry hoped that the sight of Hagrid calling out for all of the firs’ years would be one that stuck around for a very, very long time.

Lily managed to give most of them the slip, vanishing under older students’ shoulders to cut to the front of the crowd. To his own surprise, Peter managed to keep up, and he barrelled forwards into the half-giant. Of course, Peter was eleven and minuscule, whereas Hagrid had likely been born bigger than Peter was at that point. The tiny student bounced off, and landed on his buttocks, wincing in pain.

A couple of other students laughed at him, but his embarrassment was quickly lost in the swirl of bodies pushing through the rarely used station. Looking between the hands offered to him, Hagrid’s enormous stump-like fingers and Lily’s tiny delicate ones, he took the latter, pulling himself up quickly. He’d learnt long ago that staying down was only a good idea if you couldn’t run.

“Al’ righ’ there?” Hagrid asked, his massive face screwed up in concern for the small child that had attempted to impale himself on Hagrid’s stomach. Peter nodded furiously, trying to fade back into the crowd. His attempt was hindered by the untimely arrival of James, Sirius and Remus, all three effectively blocking off any exit. Lily smiled reassuringly at him, which helped about as much as Hagrid’s question.

The rest of the first years were soon assembled, and Hagrid lead them to a small fleet of boats. Unable to help himself, Harry moved as far away from the few faces he knew, sitting on Hagrid’s boat instead. Other than his friend, Harry thought that this would make him one of the very few wizards to take this trip twice, even if it was just a memory.

The darkness of the lake only served to brighten the glittering lights of the castle as it rose in front of them, shimmering like a beacon in this bizarre experience. Hagrid was humming to himself as they slowly approached the castle, and much sooner than the last time he’d taken the boats, the trip was over and they were clambering out of the boats and inside the castle. It was a lot harder getting out of the boat when it didn’t react to your weight, Harry discovered.

 

McGonagall’s face, peering sternly down at her new charges from behind a clipboard, was mostly unchanged. Harry thought he could see a few places where the lines from trying to keep his father and friends, and then the Weasley twins in line would be, but otherwise he was simply struck by how familiar everything in the castle still was. It didn’t bear the scars of the battle that would eventually be fought here, the culmination of two wars, the deaths of hundreds of its students. Harry hadn’t thought that a Hogwarts that was only fractured under the surface would touch him as much as it did.

She cleared her throat, and the speech that had so relieved Harry settled over the first years, calming the few who’d been told lies by older siblings, or didn’t know anything at all. James and Sirius were clearly utterly unconcerned by this, already discussing plans for mischief that would have them out of the school’s doors as soon as they’d entered them. Peter was slowly turning white, his nerves not eased by Professor McGonagall’s words. Harry wondered if he would be forced to see pieces of himself in the man who’d caused the deaths of his parents for the rest of his life.

With a snapped word, Professor McGonagall had every eye in the Entrance Hall on her. The first years lined up behind her, and they were shuffling quickly down the very middle of the Great Hall, Hufflepuffs on their right, Ravenclaws on their left. They milled about in the middle, more creeped out by the Sorting Hat’s song than anything. Some of the Muggleborns looked incredulous that their future was about to be left in the hands- or, er, folds of a talking hat.

Black, Sirius was the first of Peter’s cabin-mates to be called, sauntering up to the stool with more confidence than any eleven year old should be able to summon. The whole room could feel the Slytherin table tense in anticipation, but as Sirius himself had predicted, the hat yelled “Gryffindor” almost as soon as it touched his head. There were gasps from the students with silver-and-emerald lined robes, and they stared blankly as a _Black_ walked to the Gryffindor table. Of course, the lions just saw this as an excuse to cheer even more loudly.

Evans, Lily didn’t warrant nearly the excitement, because no one knew her potential. All they saw was another Muggleborn girl, there to get her schooling like the rest of them. When she followed Sirius, there was no shock or disappointment, but the Gryffindors went wild anyway.

Lupin, Remus was happy just to be there, and when the hat yelled out that he, too, would be a lion, his smile grew even deeper. He’d worried that the Hat would put him in Slytherin for being a monster, but it hadn’t even considered that by the look on his face.

Pettigrew, Peter sat on the stool and made it tremble with his own fear. Harry couldn’t hear the muttering of the Hat, but he could see the confusion and terror on Peter’s face deepen as the Hat took longer and longer to come to a conclusion. The seconds ticked by, and as they did the interest of the tables picked up. None of the students could remember anyone taking this long. Until, eventually, it said “Gryffindor”, with a horrible finality that Harry could feel in his stomach. It was as though the Hat had weighed all the futures that could be for Peter Pettigrew, and judged this one the best.

Potter, James took the Hat from a relieved Peter with a flourish, and yelled “Gryffindor” along with the Hat as it touched his temple. Gryffindor’s Hat looked offended by being robbed of it’s singular job, but not at all surprised that there would be another Potter in his old master’s house. He walked to the table with his arm around Peter’s neck, and they joined Sirius and Remus at a new space that had opened up for them.

Snape, Severus was one of the last to be Sorted that year. He looked over a Lily mournfully, entirely aware that whatever happened next was bound to disappoint him. When the hat yelled “Slytherin”, Lily’s face fell. Snape didn’t look at her as he walked over to the green table, his happiness at being among new friends tainted by the inevitable loss of Lily that it represented.

The memory faded out as Peter watched Severus Snape join the Slytherins, and Harry could see a thoughtful look on the young boy’s face.

 

There was another fragment, clearly from later that very night by the awkward way the boys looked at each other in the first year Gryffindor boy’s dormitory. James and Sirius had their arms full of food from the feast, and were busy gleefully telling Remus how easy it had been to sneak into the kitchens, and that the house elves had simply given them anything they asked for. Peter was sitting on his bed, outside the circle of light were the food was, and the story. When Sirius reached the end of the gripping tale, he sank his teeth into a somehow still-warm breadroll, and sighed contentedly.

James turned around, and frowned at the sight of Peter so far away. “What are you doing all the way over there?” he asked, “you can’t even reach the food!” From Peter’s expression, it was clear to Harry that this was the fateful moment where James Potter won the loyalty of Peter Pettigrew. He wondered how different the moment would be where James lost it.

 


End file.
